Page 140 of I Dream of Dragons

“And now we need to cross again. You swore to help.”

“Careful, kingling.”

Marsyas. King Marsyas of old. Is the king speaking the truth? Is this the body I am inhabiting? Does Jai know?

“Remember who you are,” he says now. “Stop clinging to this reality. As for her, do you think she’d stay beside you if she could see what you really are?” He turns to her. “Remember that he caused your family’s demise. Your parents. Your little brother. Your people. You don’t believe me? Ask him for details, now, while Jai is bound. Ask Phaethon.”

“Shut your mouth,” I snarl, not even sure why I don’t want him telling her that. Why I don’t want him shattering this fragile reality, this glass bubble I have strangely found myself in.

“He is my general,” the king goes on, relentless, smirking at her. “My right-hand man. What do you think he’s been doing for a hundred years? Squashing the human rebellion. Killing your people.”

“No,” she whispers. “He was forced into this.”

Her belief in Jai’s goodness is staggering.

“She is naive.” The king turns his attention back to me. “Recover your memories, Phaethon. Recover your power. We need you. We have to go back. Our people there are waiting for our return. I promised them we’d go back.”

“You changed,” I say, thinking of what she told me. “In crossing. They won’t even recognize you. Won’t accept you as one of their own.”

“Same goes for you,” he says frostily, sweeping his mantle to turn his back on me. “Ever think about that?”

Well, I did my best not to think about it in a hundred years, and then she arrived and shoved that fact into my face. Now this.The king hinting at things that can’t be true and insinuating that our situations are similar.

That I have no more right to want to cross over than he does.

Comparing us. Me and the kingling. As if there is any comparison.

As if my resolve is for nothing. My struggle. My fight. My war.

Unacceptable.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

RAE

“I expect you in my rooms for dinner tonight,” the king says. “I’ll send a dress.”

“I’m not going,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Don’t make me use the mark.” His gaze is cold, disdainful. “Or would you prefer I sent guards to drag you through the palace?”

“Why are you… doing this?” I grind out through clenched teeth. “I know you’re not Mars. You forced a mark on me. You tortured Jai. Do you derive such pleasure from tormenting me?”

He gives me a level look. “You may not believe it, but no, I don’t derive any joy from torture. Yours, or Jai’s. Everything I do is necessary, a stepping stone toward my purpose.”

I hate him. I hate him with everything I have, and yet no words come out of my mouth. He doesn’t see the wrong in his actions. Yesterday I’d have thought he looks… sad. That it’s sincerity I see in his pale eyes.

Now I know it’s flat cruelty.

He whirls away in a flurry of his satin cape and leads his guards out of the room, the door closing behind them.

The silence stretches. I turn to find Phaethon frowning at the closed door. The room smells of blood, and rust, and Jai. It feels weird that I smell him while knowing it’s Phaethon I’m looking at.

Phaethon, who demanded I stay in the room because he doesn’t trust the king with me. Is he serious? Why would he want to protect me?

Because Jai likes me. He said so. That’s the answer.

I step in front of him, between him and the door he’s staring at as if he’s trying to burn a hole through it. “Let me talk to Jai.”